Paste technology is an emerging technology, especially in the mining industry for disposal of tailings to meet environmental requirements. Instead of using elaborate and costly disposal of tailings in plastic lined basins, paste technology may be used for modification of the tailings materials to produce more favorable environmental effects.
Tailings formed in a flowable paste have been pumped to underground or underwater disposal sites. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,463,172 discloses disposing of hazardous industrial solid waste such as mill tailings in a water saturated area. In the disclosed process, mill tailings are formed into a flowable paste and are pumped to an excavation under a body of water. In this process, cement is mixed with the paste as a binding agent so the paste will become a hardened mass under the standing water.
While the above process appears to be functional for water saturated areas, a need remains for adequate disposal in areas which are relatively dry. The present process fills this need eliminating the need for deep water dispersion where the standing water is used as a cap. The present process further simplifies deposition of the paste by eliminating the need for special considerations to assure that the flowable paste will not mix with standing water.